Professor Johnson's award-winning research adopts a social-technical perspective to investigate how platforms, algorithms, and social dynamics shape the discovery, creation, and sharing of digital information. His research spans a broad range of topics, including online communities and other social media that support open innovation; application of social network analysis to teams, topics, and large voluntary collectives; content moderation; information source diversity; echo chambers and filter bubbles; race, gender, and technology; and the ethical use of AI and other emerging technology. 

His research has appeared in top-tier management journals of MIS Quarterly; Organization Science; Information Systems Research; and Harvard Business Review, as well as at international conferences sponsored by leading academic organizations, including the Academy of Management and the Association of Information Systems. He has taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses, including systems and strategy, business analytics, and information technology management.